The Montclair Board of School Estimate on Thursday passed a $125M school budget and approved the school tax levy.

The Montclair school district officially has a budget for the 2018-2019 school year, and the taxpayers will see a jump in their tax bills.

The Montclair Board of School Estimate approved at its meeting on Thursday the $125 million budget by a 5-0 vote.

The five members are At-Large Township Councilmember Rich McMahon, Mayor Robert Jackson, 1st Ward Councilmember Bill Hurlock, BOE President Laura Hertzog and BOE member Jessica de Koninck.

They are tasked with examining the district budget to potentially find more savings before approving a final school tax levy increase.

The approval came with an uptick in the percentage of increase in the school tax levy from 2.47 percent to 2.89 percent. The tax levy will go from $112,471,548 to $115,941,376 for a school district budget of $125,007,379.

The increase comes out to $57.68 for every $100,000 of assessed home value, or an increase of 294.45 for a home assessed at the average value of $510,448. That means the school-district portion of an average homeowner’s property tax will increase from $10.035.71 to $10,330.16.

Emidio D'Andrea, the business administrator for the Montclair school district, said after the meeting there were cuts in the budget, including reduction of six teachers and 10 paraprofessionals.

But he said the state school aid for Montclair, which would be $7,428,526 for the 2018-2019 school year, a 7.8 percent increase from $6,891,951 for 2017-2018, could provided funds to help bring back those employees proposed for cutting.

The biggest increases in the budget were for salaries, employee benefits and tuition for students placed out-of-district.